Time to get O'l Stella back on the road!!
So heres the problem: Putting the car in 1st gear is a complete bitch, unless I coast into it, 3rd & 4th grind. Yeah the car is almost in-operable
At first I thought I burned up my 3yr old clutch, pulled the tranny, removed the clutch, looked fine, no excessive wear at all. After my transmission swap, I had a mechanic look over my work. Everything was fine except he mentioned that my Throw Out Bearing might fail in the future. Perhaps due to propper lubracation, too much or lack there of.

Few others suggested that the pressure plate might be F_ed or the Clutch Cable needs to be adjusted. It seemed a little loose when I removed the tranny, the rubber grommet on the Fork worked itself out.

However last summer I swaped out my 4sp for Craigslist 5 135-140k on it. The input shaft seal was busted (some how the kid before me jammed the axel into the tranny, leavin spline marks w/ a chunk missing) Replaced that b/c I was leakin tranny fluid all over the place.

So let me know what you guys think, plan on fixing this thing toinight at my buddys shop Thanks!!

 

sounds to me like it wasn't adjusted properly

BTW - the seal where the axle goes in is not the input shaft seal

 

How does it go into gear with the car off? if it's ok then, something is wrong with the clutch assembly.

 

been a while since I drove it
If I rember corectly I had to jam the car into 1st, both when it was on & off

 

is the trans also from an 88? the transmissions in 88 had a slew of issues, including gear stack problems, shift forks wearing badly and simply breaking, and other issues. in 89 they corrected the problems, thats why 88 was the only year the transmissions had 21 spline input shaft.. all others following have 20 spline shaft. either way, I wouldn't bother trying to fix the trans or clutch. just get a good used one(89-91) and a new matching clutch. good luck with it, don't let a small issue like this win

 

yeah its an 88 for sure, took me so flippin long to find one. I didn't realize they had such issues, I probably would have grab a different one!